“What is that, my pet?” asked Syra, laughing.
“Why, you said that I was wiser and better than you, because I declined eating some trumpery delicacy, which would have gratified my palate for a few minutes, at the expense of an act of greediness; while you have given up liberty, happiness, the free exercise of your religion, and have offered to give up life itself, for the salvation of one who is your tyrant and tormentor. Oh, fie! how could you tell me such a thing!”
A Dove, as a Symbol of the Soul, found in the Catacombs.
The servant now announced that Agnes’s litter was waiting at the door; and any one who could have seen the affectionate farewell of the three,—the noble lady, the slave, and the beggar, would have justly exclaimed, as people had often done before, “See how these Christians love one another!”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST DAY’S CONCLUSION.
Euphrosyne had all the servants interrogated, and many even searched, to Syra’s great pain and confusion; and then ordered a grand general battue through every part of the house where Syra had been. Who for a moment could have dreamt of suspecting a noble guest at the master’s table of purloining any article, valuable or not? The old lady therefore came to the conclusion, that the scarf had been spirited away by some magical process; and greatly suspected that the black slave Afra, who she knew could not bear Syra, had been using some spell to annoy the poor girl. For she believed the Moor to be a very Canidia,[34] being often obliged to let her go out alone at night, under pretence of gathering herbs at full moon for her cosmetics, as if plucked at any other time, they would not possess the same virtues; to procure deadly poisons Euphrosyne suspected, but in reality to join in the hideous orgies of Fetichism[35] with others of her race, or to hold interviews with such as consulted her imaginary art. It was not till all was given up, and Syra found herself alone, that on more coolly recollecting the incidents of the day, she remembered the pause in Fulvius’s walk across the court, at the very spot where she had stood, and his hurried steps, after this, to the door. The conviction then flashed on her mind, that she must have there dropped her kerchief, and that he must have picked it up. That he should have passed it with indifference she believed impossible. She was confident, therefore, that it was now in his possession. After attempting to speculate on the possible consequences of this misadventure, and coming to no satisfactory conclusion, she determined to commit the matter entirely to God, and sought that repose which a good conscience was sure to render balmy and sweet.
Fabiola, on parting with Agnes, retired to her apartment; and after the usual services had been rendered to her by her other two servants and Euphrosyne, she dismissed them with a gentler manner than ever she had shown before. As soon as they had retired, she went to recline upon the couch where first we found her; when, to her disgust, she discovered lying on it the style with which she had wounded Syra. She opened a chest, and threw it in with horror; nor did she ever again use any such weapon.
